Blogs from Badlands, South Dakota, United States, North America - page 6

After a REALLY bad roast beef sandwiches at Arby's that we couldn't eat we were off to the Badlands. We arrived just before sunset with a full moon rising. Perfect timing the colors were unbelievable. The landscape takes your breath away, around every turn another spectacular view. At the far end of the park there's a lodge and restaurant we were lucky, although they didn't have any vacancies there the receptionist called the other lodge a mile away just outside the park and they had one room left! How lucky can you get. The cows were in the pasture next to us and a view of the badlands out of our window. Not a bad view to wake up to. ... read more

July 24, 2007 Yesterday it was 102 in Sioux Falls, and today it reached 106 in the Badlands. Holy cow, it is really hot! I wasn’t sure our poor van was going to be able to pull the camper in that kind of heat, but someone we made it. Yesterday, we stayed in Sioux Falls the whole day. Luckily, there was a camper dealer next door who very happily kept our van for most of the day to add the cables to run the camper brakes. We stayed at a KOA right off the highway, but were lucky that it had a pool. We spent hours at the pool and in the camper with our AC on. Late that night, we drove to the Badlands. OK, so we thought that driving when the kids were asleep ... read more

Day 4 - Departed 6:00AM CST. Today’s trip shall take us through the rest of Minnesota (and Adrian, MN) and into South Dakota. We’re camping in the Badlands tonight. Mike and Benji upset our rich neighbors at the campsite by using the drill at 5:30 this morning. Mike also used his outside voice to help Benji hook up the camper. This resulted in the neighbors shutting their window rather violently. “Oh look, variety,” Benji said, talking about the two turns in I-90. 7:30AM - First vehicle passes us. Called G-ma. All is good on the estate. Called Kacy. Muffins misses us.  Mike witnessed two cows creating beef. World’s Largest Steer Head…it was big. The boys are looking forward to pooping in the corn palace “I don’t remember eating corn…” Prepare to be a-maize-ed Corn-see ... read more

This has been a truly amazing day! (But do you know how hard is was to not type a-maize-ing?...Corn Palace, remember?) Yes, we did stop at the Corn Palace. It was the first stop of the day and it had been misting and raining until we got within about 10 miles (which turned out to be the standard for the day.) It was really impressive actually. It is redecorated every year using 600,000 ears of corn and 3,000 bushels of other grains and grasses. There are 9 different colors of indian corn used in the mural pictures. The pictures were more intricate than I thought they would be. After leaving Mitchell and the Corn Palace we headed on west. We stopped at a rest area in Chamberlain because I had read that the view was ... read more

Motorhome News from North America 42 23rd April - 6th May 2007 From the Rockies to Nebraska and South Dakota - and the sad demise of Suzie, our friend and bear. Rocky Mountain National Park There seemed little point in waiting for the snow to come to Rocky Mountain National Park, leaving us with the prospect of sitting out the days awaiting the thaw. Two feet of snow was forecast and that was enough to convince us to move on rather more rapidly than previously intended. We had enjoyed our short stay; the awesome sight of magnificent mountains of the Continental Divide sawing a sharp line through the state: 58 jagged white peaks over 14,000ft stretching their heads into the sky, herds of elk and deer on the hills, fleeting flocks of bluebirds on the meadows, ... read more